Complete Idiot's Guide to Conquering Fear and Anxiety

Page 262You relive the event daily in images, dreams or flashbacks.You avoid thinking about the traumatic event and anything that reminds you of it.You live with intense anxiety and agitation when exposed to cues of the trauma; anniversaries of the event are unbearably painful.You feel numb and emotionally dead, yet flare up at little things.Anxious and tense, you have difficulty sleeping, concentrating, or even remembering things.You are hyper­vigilant and constantly on the lookout for danger and startle easily at noise or sudden movements.You feel depressed and may have even contemplated suicide.You may find yourself turning to drink and drugs to numb your pain and memories.Although we recognize these as predictable patterns following exposure to a trauma, PTSD has only recently been accepted as a psychiatric or emotional disorder thatneeds treatment. First described during WWI as ''shell shock," and then later in World War II as "combat fatigue," or "war neurosis," it was considered a sign ofpsychological instability and evoked contempt and pity. To avoid being stigmatized, soldiers did their best to keep their fear and trembling and nightmares secret,leaving them to lick their own psychological wounds in silence. Until the 1970s, many mental health professionals continued to believe that "normal" people couldendure any atrocity. It took the suffering of Vietnam veterans, haunted long afterwards by their combat experience, to open the eyes of the psychological communityand to establish PTSD as an official diagnosis.Right After the ShockIf you've ever experienced trauma, which is an amazing half of all women and a little over half of all men, you know that you initially go through at least short­termtrauma. During the event itself, you probably felt:Intense fearDisbeliefNumbnessAngerConfusionPounding heart